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Department of Fire Service and Civil Defence

department · verified (verified 2026-05-17)

Profile

Head
Brigadier General Muhammad Jahed Kamal
Role
Director General
Annual budget
—
Staff
14570
Established
1981
Legal basis
Established 9 April 1981 by merger of the pre-existing Fire Service Directorate and Civil Defence Directorate under the Ministry of Home Affairs. Primary legislation: Fire Prevention and Extinguishing Act, 2003 (Ogni Protirodh O Nirbapon Ain 2003); Fire Prevention and Extinction Rules, 2014. Bangladesh National Building Code (BNBC) 2020 Part 4 governs fire-safety standards enforced by FSCD.

FSCD is in a period of heightened operational pressure following 27,059 fire incidents in 2025 (75 per day), the deadliest being the Mirpur factory-chemical warehouse fire (16 killed, October 2025) and the Uttara residential fire (6 killed, January 2026); DG Jahed Kamal has publicly pressed for a social movement against illegal chemical storage and stronger BNBC enforcement; the department is expanding its 537-station network and building earthquake rapid-response capacity alongside its core fire mandate, while inter-agency coordination with DSCC and other bodies on market fire-safety drives and building-code compliance enforcement remains a recurring priority.

Recent activity

Provenance & notes

Established 9 April 1981 through the merger of the pre-existing Fire Service Directorate and Civil Defence Directorate; headquartered at 1 Sheikh Russell Sarak (Mirpur Road), Dhaka. The DG post is conventionally held by a Brigadier General of the Bangladesh Army on deputation; Brig Gen Muhammad Jahed Kamal was appointed by the Ministry of Public Administration and took charge on 3 October 2024, succeeding Brig Gen Md Main Uddin. Staff count of 14,570 and 537 fire stations are sourced from FSCD annual statistics published in January 2026 covering year-end 2025 data; sanctioned-post figures differ from actual strength and are not disaggregated in public reports. annual_budget_bdt is left null because no FSCD-specific line-item figure from the FY2025-26 budget schedule was confirmable from two independent public sources; the MoHA combined allocation figure is noted in budget_actions. The parent_id_ref 'Security Services Division' is confirmed by the FSCD's own portal domain structure (fireservice.portal.gov.bd) and MoHA Wikipedia organisational chart. RAB-FSCD-DSCC coordination on market fire-safety drives is an ongoing but episodic mechanism; no specific joint operation in the 90-day window was confirmed by two sources and is therefore not included as a notable event. The probe into the HSIA cargo fire (October 2025) found systemic security and safety failures but has not resulted in publicly confirmed criminal referrals as of the verification date.

Sources